


Curtain Call

by arcaneGash



Category: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Super Mario & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 00:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaneGash/pseuds/arcaneGash
Summary: The Shadow Sirens, and Doopliss, encourage each other to follow their dreams.





	Curtain Call

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this like five months ago and now seems like as good a time as any to post it before i forget
> 
> this takes place after the events of ttyd but prior to 998, and while it's compliant with the canon of 998 you don't need to have read my other stuff to get it
> 
> i have the most fun writing for beldam and doopliss and that is my only justification

Doopliss couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so _bored._

He lounged in his chair, his chin propped up on his hand. His eyes drifted from the TV screen in front of him to the outside world surrounding the belfry he had made his home. The tips of the pine trees below swayed in unison with the breeze, and a moment later the same gust blew through the open walls and ruffled his sheet. He let out a sigh of his own, dragging his wandering eyes back to the screen. This was one of his favorite shows, but he couldn’t focus on it—or anything, really. Very few things could hold his attention for long before he’d find himself slipping. All his TV shows felt like reruns even if he’d never seen them before, and plotting pranks with the Boos downstairs never felt like it was worth the effort anymore. Again his eyes left the screen and met the moon outside, a glowing beacon hovering in the dusky sky. Just like him, it was always there. Just like him, it didn’t do anything new or exciting. It just sat there, stagnating, lifeless.

All of Twilight Town and its surrounding gloom was like that. Doopliss had been enthralled with the atmosphere at first, thought there was no better place for someone like him. He and all the other undead were tucked away in an ancient abandoned church, at the very outskirts of a tiny, quiet town of reserved, unadventurous people. Out of sight, out of mind. Only the Boos had known he was there—he’d quarantined himself away from the land of the living, and for what? So he lashed out at those skittish Twilighters. Made them fear the curse he’d placed upon them with the power of that weird gem he’d found, made them tremble at the thought of the monster in their belfry, made them flinch when they heard the bell ring. It was something to do. He told himself it was fun.

Then all the rest of that happened, and now nothing felt the same anymore.

Being Mario actually _was_ fun, he thought for the thousandth time that week. Being Mario was _different._ Everyone loved Mario, everyone was quick to shower him with gifts and gratitude. He was a hero. Doopliss had felt it the moment he’d first laid eyes on the human and all his friends. At first, he’d resented it. What made this guy so special that he just…exuded this star quality no matter what? It wasn’t fair. But then Doopliss had stolen his body, had _become_ Mario, even if he hadn’t quite nailed the whole “selfless heroics” thing. And he understood. Mario was…really nothing special. He could jump high, he could fight. So what? No, what separated him from the rest was something Doopliss hadn’t been able to pinpoint, even while living in his skin.

He groaned aloud and squeezed his eyes shut against the flashing of the screen. Thinking about this too much always gave him a headache, so why couldn’t he _stop?_ He pressed his hands against his temples and idly wondered where he’d kicked the remote, hoped he hadn’t tossed it into the bathtub again.

He stopped. There was a presence, he felt it in this room. The Boos rarely made it upstairs, though…two noises from behind his chair. Wispy, floaty, quiet enough that Doopliss may have missed it if his ear wasn’t so attuned to their exact pitch. Before he could even turn, though, a voice he’d hoped to never hear again broke the near-silence in the belfry, drowning out his TV.

“Freak-sheet! Thought we’d find you here. You’ll be glad to know we’re not down and out yet.”

He scowled as he rose from his chair, trying his best to cross his arms given they were merely bunches of fabric. Two people stood in his room, as if they’d crawled out of the shadows drawn by the moonlight—which they had. One was much shorter than him, the other much taller. They lacked legs, attached to the stone floor by a thin wisp like a ghostly tail, the same dark purple as the rest of their skin. They both wore white gloves on their hands and wide-brimmed witch’s hats, striped with color in accordance with their elemental magic: blue and white for the shorter, yellow and white for the taller. The shorter one’s wicked sneer beneath her pointed nose made Doopliss instinctively frown harder, but the taller one…he’d never seen her look so glum. He couldn’t see her eyes beneath her blonde bangs, of course, but the way her shoulders sagged, the way she didn’t seem to be looking in his direction…she was tired. And not the kind of tired sleep could fix.

He returned his gaze to the short one, glaring at her where he thought her eyes might have been, concealed under the brim of her hat. “Beldam,” he grunted, addressing her by name when she refused him the same courtesy. Funny how she could get him to beg her to call him his name when that very thing had been his undoing…actually, it wasn’t funny at all.

Looking at the Shadow Sirens brought back in a rush everything he’d tried to ignore this past week. “What—what even was that?!”

“Was what?” That self-assured little grin vanished from Beldam’s face, replaced with the pursed-lips thing she did whenever something wasn’t going her way. Which was often.

“You know! The thing—with the—” He flailed his sheet around, as if he could pantomime the shadowy hands he’d seen when he lacked those particular appendages. He also pulled a face, trying to get across that what he had witnessed was a _monster_—and not the fun kind, like he was. Even if he could have adequately shapeshifted into a replica of that thing in the tomb, he didn’t want to subject his own body to that.

“Use your words, for the stars’ sake.” Beldam rolled her eyes, he didn’t need to see to tell.

“The Palace!” he spat out, his sheet fluttering with his agitation. “The Palace of Shadow—the coffin, the—_you_ wanted all that? Why?!”

“Ah.” Beldam looked a little less irritated now, folding her hands behind her back. “That _thing_ you speak of with such disdain? The Shadow Queen. The creator of the Crystal Stars…and the Shadow Sirens.” She held a hand out to indicate her younger sister beside her—Marilyn still seemed to be steadfastly avoiding Doopliss’s eyes. “Best watch your tone when discussing our maker, Freak-sheet.”

“That was…that was your plan all along?” Doopliss shook his head, stepping away from the sisters and nearly backing into his chair. “If I’d known, I…I only went along with you ‘cause…I wanted to get back at Mario. I didn’t want…_that._ I don’t want anything to do with that!”

“This _is_ getting back at Mario.” Beldam closed the distance, her lips parting to reveal her teeth again. “He’s gone home now, there’s nothing stopping us from—”

“No us!” Doopliss barked. “I said I don’t wanna get involved! That thing was—just evil, I felt it in every thread in my body.” He tried and failed not to shiver in front of the eldest Shadow Siren. He used to take great pleasure in sleeping, even though he didn’t need to, and feeling as listless as he did now, he’d thought it would be a nice way to pass the time. Except every time he drifted off, the Shadow Queen’s dark aura flooded his mind, wormed its way into his brain’s every crevice and lingered there, a fog he couldn’t shake off. He had felt death’s touch, and now inhabited this bedsheet that created his body, and forever would until he did…something, he wasn’t even sure what would free him from this prison of his own making. But not even reliving his own demise struck him with as much fear as the Shadow Queen did. He somehow knew she was capable of worse.

“You’re really such a stranger to evil?” Beldam raised an eyebrow, he could hear it in her tone. “I would think you owe the Shadow Queen one, seeing as you _borrowed_ one of her creations for the sake of a silly prank on the Twilighters.”

“I mean, yeah, once!” Doopliss shook his head firmly now, resisting the urge to keep stepping back. It was probably already too late, Beldam almost certainly knew he was intimidated. “I don’t care about any of that anymore. Pranks, revenge, power, it’s all just…” He trailed off.

“Fleeting. Temporary. I understand.” Beldam nodded. “I assure you that the Queen’s reign will be anything but.”

“I said no, Beldam.” He stood up a little straighter, looming over her. “What’s even in it for me, huh? I don’t have any ties to her, not like you. How do I know she’s not just gonna…toss me aside when it’s convenient for her?”

“You will, of course, be appropriately compensated for your participation in her revival.” Beldam’s dismissal came off too quick, too glib. She wasn’t smiling. Doopliss wondered if her thoughts were elsewhere.

He’d bring her back to the present. “I don’t believe you,” he snorted. “I mean, you did all the work last time and she barely even said two words to you!”

She glowered. An even cooler breeze made Doopliss’s sheet ripple, and this time it wasn’t from the wind outside. “You’re missing the point. I am not offering this to you so you can be rewarded; I am offering so you can be spared. The Queen laid her claim on this world, in its entirety, a thousand years ago. Neutrality is siding with the enemy. Your abstinence will not save you upon her inevitable return.”

Doopliss chewed on this for a moment, sizing her up. The chill in the air—he’d pissed her off. Without even meaning to, this time. She was on edge. She was _desperate._ “So…which is it?” he prodded. “Am I gonna be rewarded if I go along with you, or am I gonna be _spared? _Death threats don’t work much on me, for obvious reasons…”

“Listen, you imbecile!” Beldam flared for a moment, a snowflake or two falling from her clenched fists, but she reigned herself in and stepped backward with a deliberate sigh. “You said yourself that you find no pleasure in the things that once brought you joy. Life does, indeed, seem meaningless without a goal to strive for, doesn’t it? I am offering you an opportunity. A purpose. You seem to need one.”

Doopliss scoffed. “Since when are you so interested in my well-being? I think I’m better off finding my own purpose. Once that doesn’t involve pledging my undeath away to servitude under a…witch-demon-lady.”

“You would turn your back on us? Make an enemy of me?” Beldam didn’t sound angry as much as she did incredulous. Like she couldn’t have ever imagined Doopliss wouldn’t have wanted to keep working with her. Which was funny, because this exact same thing had already happened.

“Vivian did.”

_“Do not say that name to me!” _The floor beneath her iced over, thin lines of frost tracing the cracks in the stone. “So you choose to follow the path of a traitor? Not just to us, her family, but her entire species! If anyone deserves to be cast off, truly lost to the shadows, it’s her.”

“Are you kidding me? I saw her a couple days ago.” Doopliss shrugged. “I turn into a crow and eavesdrop on the Twilighters sometimes. They know she helped Mario stomp the Shadow Queen, and they love her. Pretty sure she lives in town now, they were so grateful they gave her a house and everything.”

Beldam froze—no pun intended—and satisfaction flooded Doopliss at the realization that he caught her off guard. She spluttered for a second and he couldn’t help but smirk.

“Well, that’s—that’s only because they don’t know she was actively working against them! It would be a shame if they found that out…you see, betraying your only allies never ends well for anyone. I’ll give you one final chance to rethink your decision.”

Doopliss tapped his mouth with his hand, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling and hemming and hawing in a way he knew would grate her. Then he dropped his hand and gave her a grin that split his face in half. “Yeah, I’m still gonna have to go with ‘no,’ Slick.”

Beldam glared, Doopliss could feel her eyes scorching his sheet. “That was a decision you will come to regret. I will not let anyone stand in my way—not even an insolent haunted pillowcase.” She turned away. “Marilyn! Knock some sense into this fool!” She punctuated “knock” by pounding her fist into her other hand.

Marilyn had been watching the exchange, though Doopliss wasn’t sure how much of it she had been able to pick up. But she was definitely on the same page now, watching Beldam’s motions with her arms crossed. Slowly, deliberately, she gave a single shake of her head.

“Excuse me?” Beldam turned her back to Doopliss entirely now—not a smart move, though he didn’t really want to fight with her at all and so would not take advantage—and signed something more in-depth.

Marilyn responded by giving her a glare and an impolite gesture that was not sign language, one even Doopliss understood. He fought his every seam not to burst out laughing. Then Marilyn sank into the shadows that pooled at her tether, vanishing from sight.

Beldam spluttered again, her fingers twitching. Ice kept creeping over the stones around her, and icicles flew from her fingertips as she stabbed them in the direction of where her sister had vanished. “Insubordinate, good-for-nothing, utterly useless waste of magic! You’ll come crawling back, and when you do you better hope I’m feeling charitable! You are _nothing_ without me!”

She was nearly panting, her breath forming clouds in the chilly air surrounding her. Then she whipped around to face Doopliss again, her teeth bared. “And you! What do you think you’ll be able to accomplish on your own? What plan do you have that’s so much better than—than…”

Doopliss shrugged. As if he hadn’t been asking himself what he was going to do since…that. The TV screen caught his eye, amidst all its flashing colors. His show had ended and the credits were rolling. He watched the endless list of names scroll up the screen. He’d never thought about it before, but there sure were a lot of people involved in the production of simple entertainment. Most people seemed to have a really specific job, too…one thing they were very good at. One purpose.

It hit him harder than Mario ever had.

“I’m gonna be an actor!”

“You’re _what.”_

He drew himself up, giving Beldam a cheeky grin. “You heard me. I can play any role they throw at me, be anyone I need to. And people love actors—you saw how they threw themselves at my feet when I was Zip Toad! It’s perfect!”

Beldam did not share his enthusiasm. Her lip curled. “You’re giving up everything the Queen has to offer in favor of dancing like a puppet for the masses.”

“Your Queen’s not gonna offer me much, Slick. All the ways you tried to sell her to me told me that.” He spread his arms. “All I’m good at is pretending to be someone I’m not…so why don’t I do more with that than just stupid pranks? Why don’t I do something that gets me more than a couple cheap laughs? I have a skill here, I’m finally gonna do something good with it!”

“But _this?_ What an asinine waste of—"

“Hey, you’re one to talk about being wasteful!” he interrupted, a little more snappishly than he intended. “I dunno what you’re expecting to happen with the Queen, but you should probably lower your standards. Or, like, stop entirely. I think it’s gonna end up screwing you.” He shrugged, as nonchalantly as he could, but when he looked at her again he let the grin worm across his face. “Now get out of my house, Slick. I got packing to do.”

Beldam, for once was speechless. Doopliss congratulated himself on the feat—the absence of her voice had never felt so rewarding. He waited for her to regain her composure, say whatever scathing thing she was surely balancing on the tip of her tongue. But she looked away. The air around her was still cold, frost collecting on the brim of her hat and glittering in the moonlight. A moment later, the ground beneath her swallowed her up. Doopliss was again alone in the belfry.

He’d cowed her. He’d _won. _All the times she’d insulted him, called him a freak, belittled his abilities…well, it didn’t quite take the sting away completely, but it definitely helped. He glowed, as bright as the moon outside.

He fished the remote out of the bathtub and turned off the TV. The brisk twilight air and the moonlight washed over him. A new beginning—a second chance. Or, maybe he was on his third or fourth by now…he shook his head, knocking loose these stray thoughts. He was going to do it _right_ this time. And no one could stop him—not Mario, not the Shadow Queen, and definitely not Beldam.

He laughed aloud, his voice ringing through the belfry, swallowed up by the enormous bell hanging over his head. Then he began to change, thick purple smoke emanating from underneath his sheet and blocking out his surroundings from his sight. The change was superficial, a magic illusion that broke once he took a substantial hit (and didn’t have one of the Crystal Stars on his side), but for this job he’d get a stunt double, right? When the smoke cleared he bounded to the TV and checked his reflection in the screen. He plucked at the mustache that had sprouted beneath the bulbous human nose, then cleared his throat and gave an experimental, “Yahoo!”

The bell echoed it back, and he pounded one of his gloved fists into his other hand. Good enough, he could perfect his technique later. Until then, it was showtime.


End file.
